Last Goodbye
by Dear Pigfarts. Love the Doctor
Summary: Getting older is hard, and especially for people who have so much pain in their past. Molly tries to deal with losing her memory, and her children have to help her. Warning: Character deaths.
**Last Goodbye**

"They found her outside again, she was screaming. I'm not sure it's going to work for us – she doesn't understand that the war is over."

It's been a while since they last contacted one of us about a problem, but it's always the same problem – over and over. Bill says that she might grow out of it, and I know he means that she might forget. Even with that chance, it's scary seeing her like this. Charlie visits her a lot. He likes to take her artifacts from his work, but sometimes I think she forgets who he is. She calls him Arthur, and I know it must be getting hard. Every day she tries to figure out who we are, I can see it in her eyes as they run over our faces.

Ron has stopped going to see her. Even Hermione can't convince him to try anymore. Mum is forgetting more and more every day, and he is definitely taking it the hardest. He insists that we need to be firm, stop talking to her as though everyone she refers to are still alive. But it's hard. I can't keep telling her that her husband is dead. The look in her eyes – it's too much.

It started when our father died. She stopped talking to us, and she stopped going out. When she finally started again, she was different. She mentioned conversations we had never had, or had forgotten ones we did. She was constantly worried for our safety, and wouldn't believe us when we told her that the war was over, and had been for years. She just didn't understand. Harry often sits with her; she's comforted by his presence – like she knows that everything is good, and no one's in danger if she can see that he is okay.

Some days are better. We can talk about current events and she knows what they are. She tells me that I worry too much, and that I shouldn't talk to her like I'm walking on thin ice. She claims that she reads the papers – that she knows what's happening. The next day she tells us that the date on the paper is wrong, that someone accidentally printed the wrong year on it.

My heart breaks when I find her talking to George. Her face is lit up, smiling – like nothing is plaguing her. I often listen by the door, smiling at how free she looks. One day I heard her call him Fred, and his face clouded over, but he didn't correct her – he never does. I asked him why the other day, and he tried to explain that telling her would be like losing him all over again – and he couldn't do that. I understand.

Our family is slowly getting smaller. Percy went to see mum the day before he passed. I wasn't sure why he was there; he had important business in London – as he was the liaison to the Muggle Prime Minister. But the way he looked at her, the way his said goodbye, it was as if he knew. She told him to say 'hello' to Arthur for her, and Percy just smiled.  
"I will, Mum," he said before he kissed her forehead and stood. "I love you." He didn't wake up the next morning.

I'm getting tired of going to funerals. They hurt too much. It feels like I'm at one every day, and the hurt never seems to end. Order Members, teachers, friends – all of them moving on, content with the work they've done. We've stopped telling her, knowing that it hurts too much. She fights us, claiming that we're lying to her, that we're trying to fool her. She says that it must be the Death Eaters, that they've come back for everyone. She doesn't listen when we tell her all the Death Eaters are gone. She will eventually forget – we know it. She will go back to a time before the war, before the heart break. She will stop leaving in the middle of the night, stop trying to fight. When that time comes we might be able to put her back in a home, but for now she has to come stay with me. The children won't mind. Most of them have kids of their own which often come to stay at our home. This will mean they can see their great-grandmother Molly again. Al's kids are good with her; they understand what they can and cannot say. Teddys' look so much like their grandparents that Mum often calls them by those names. They don't correct her anymore.

Every day I wake up scared, like I will walk in and find her missing – or worse. Harry reassures me that it will be fine, but I can't get rid of this feeling in my gut. Like time is running out.

It's Christmas again, and everyone has come to say hello. They talk to her, and she seems to know who they are. She calls the grandkids by their names and she tells us that she misses Arthur more every day. She shows us old pictures of our family and I cry. She tells me Christmas isn't time for tears, that I need to smile at how lucky we all are for making it this far.

People start to leave. They say good bye, and to everyone she says the same thing. Child by child, a section of the family shuffle out back to their little parts of the world. It's quiet when they leave, and I can tell that the night has taken a lot out of my mother. She asks to go to bed and I help her. Harry says goodnight, and the kids cycle through with their kids. Every time she continues to say the same thing. Finally the house is all but empty, Harry is waiting for me in our room and I go to give mum a final kiss goodnight. She looks up at me, her eyes glittering. She doesn't speak as I go to the door and whisper goodnight. The light goes out and I hear her say the words she had said to everyone else:  
"Goodbye, love, until I see you again."

I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed the next morning, because in my heart I knew – she had said her last goodbye.

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 **A/N: Words – 1,063**

 **Prompts – Written for Assessment #10 – DADA "close to no dialogue"…**

 **May Event – 'Week-Long Events' 8. Write about a character in a Nursing home.**


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